JANET IRONS: OK, I want you to go back and tell me about the time when you
were meeting out in the woods, and explain why you were doing it. Why you -- what made you decide to get together, and why you were doing it in the woods instead of out in the open. And just tell the story from the beginning in your own words.BURNS COX: Well, there was a bunch of us old heads and we had union in our
blood. My father worked over at the (inaudible) -- what they call a [car knocker?] over at the old shop over there, that were unionized back in them day, and I reckon it got him a blood death, and all. But when we commenced -- us old people commenced to -- I said old, I mean our young people commenced determined to how to find a union, we knew it was daresome to breath it in the city limits. 00:01:00IRONS: Why not?
COX: Because you'd afraid and throw your stuff out of the damn mill. Excuse
me, I forgot about being that. Anybody that say anything about a union in them days was dead duck. So we would hold our meetings up here on Black Creek, and we wouldn't even light a match up there for fear that they might have spies out looking at us. And we done our continual meeting and we held our group together, small group. And then when we did get to come out in the open, then we come out with a pretty good group. That group stayed together during the Dixie Federation of Labor and we helped organize. I mean we was organizing it, holding open meetings for the people of Dwight to come to our meetings. They came. We had a houseful and we were to form our own union.IRONS: Now when did you come out in the open and why?
00:02:00COX: It was in the '30 -- '32, I believe it was.
GEORGE STONEY: Let's start again and say it was after the NRA, so it was the
summer of '33.COX: Summer of '33.
IRONS: When the NRA came in. Does that make sense to you? That's when it
makes sense to us with the articles of incorporation.COX: Well, let's see, we -- we incorporated -- you remember when we incorporated?
IRONS: Summer of '33.
COX: Well, that was it then, '33, yeah.
GEORGE STONEY: OK, now start again and tell the story.
IRONS: When did you come out in the open and why?
COX: We come out in the open and after we got knowledge that Franklin D.
Roosevelt was a laboring man, and we commit to having our meetings in the open then. And we stayed in the open. As I said we started the meetings, our people commenced to 10 in a meetings. We wrote the constitution and bylaws for the Dixie Federation of Labor. We incorporated it on the State laws of Alabama. We had city, I mean the county courthouse. And we commenced to holding our 00:03:00meetings. And we had a good bunch of people going with us. Then when we was getting down right, we know we didn't have no money, Cox and Dean -IRONS: Now who were they?
COX: They was the organizer for the old Textile Workers Union. TWA come in and
they took over our union.IRONS: Now come back and tell me a little bit about when you came out into the
open and you had those good meetings with the right good crowd. How did you get those people to come to those meetings?COX: They got a long period of fear left 'em when we come out in the open.
They see that we wasn't afraid and what did they have to be afraid of. Now that was in '33.IRONS: Uh-huh, uh-huh. What did you do at those meetings?
COX: We held our regular union meeting. We got up and we incorporated the
bylaws and all. We had talked about the working conditions and everything in 00:04:00the meeting and all.IRONS: One of the things we want you to do is to try to give people today a
picture of what a meeting would be like. Maybe starting at the beginning and then telling us all the different things that might happen at a meeting.GEORGE STONEY: And also why people were so anxious to join a union. What
grievances that they had.IRONS: Right, OK, good. So we have two questions really. The first one is why
did they all want to come and join. What did they think the union was going to do for them?COX: It was going to get 'em out from under what we was under, the working
conditions. (phone ringing)IRONS: No, we need to start that one over as soon as she finishes answering it.
COX: She got an extension one up there.
IRONS: OK. So we want to know why they came to these meetings. What did they
think the union was going to do for them?COX: They knew if we could get a union in here and could get the recognition
from the company, that we would have better working conditions and better wages and everything. At that time, we had nothing. You was on the company mercy at everything. 00:05:00IRONS: Can you describe some of that, what they wanted to get out from under?
COX: Working conditions and everything. See they laid it on us and -- at a
strike. I mean they ate but (inaudible) but in those days -- in the '33s when the depression hit and all.IRONS: Can you remember some stories of people and the troubles that they had or
yourself even? Was it with overseers or was it with the -- what did people -COX: You doing what the company told you to do or you didn't have no job.
It's just that plain and simple. I could go into stories but I won't do it.IRONS: Go ahead.
COX: No, I won't do it. I saw things happen up there that I wouldn't want
nobody to hear. Of course, I'm the only one that probably living that could tell it and I can be denied. But that thing we used to be run by -- the way the company wanted it run. If you didn't do what they tell you do, you got out. 00:06:00They put somebody else in your place.IRONS: How did that make people feel?
COX: Well, they scared to death. They were scared.
GEORGE STONEY: What about the women?
COX: Some of 'em braved it. We had some of the good women that stayed with
us. I believe Pearl [Bagley?] and this -- what's her name over here, the one in the parking lot (inaudible) [Beard?] and there was [Ank?].IRONS: Now there were some -- I mean I remember when I talked to you before.
You did tell me some stories. Maybe you don't want to tell 'em again but there were some stories about people being treated pretty badly, especially the women by some of the overseers.COX: You don't want to them on record.
IRONS: Well, I think people deserve to know the truth but it's really up to
you. You have to make your own decision.COX: Well, you see, it nobody can confirm what I'm saying.
IRONS: Actually, we've heard it from a lot of people.
COX: Well, I'll -- if you got lots of people backing you and if they told you
00:07:00the same thing I can tell you. No, it was pitiful the way the bosses treated the help up there. The bosses want to go around, if they wanted to date you, you dated them or you didn't no job job, he knows about it. He heard the Davison story. You got it in black and white. You would have had to wait practically all over the mill.IRONS: The bosses would...
COX: Entice women. If they didn't go with 'em, they was out, you know.
IRONS: Do you think that was a big reason why people wanted the union?
COX: I'm satisfied it was to a partial extent, yeah.
IRONS: Tell me more about the -- these meetings now. Maybe you could describe
one for us.COX: Well, when we had our regular meeting down -- we come to the meeting, our
regular meeting, we had our flags. We had the fellow there that'd open up the meeting with a prayer, close it with a prayer. We had general discussions from the floor on working conditions, how they're being treated, what would you 00:08:00like to have done. It was open for discussion amongst all of us in the meetings. And we'd do that every meeting night.IRONS: How often would you have these kinds of meetings?
COX: About once a week.
IRONS: About once a week.
COX: Something like that.
IRONS: And then when the John Dean and Albert Cox came in, you kept on having
the meetings?COX: No, they pushed us aside. The Dixie was out. They pushed us aside. They
took over. They tried to do with their help what we had started to do, you see. And we had our help on the way. And then they took over and they made a blunder of it.IRONS: Let me -- let me go back to those meetings again. How did people feel
once they went through a meeting like that? I mean how did the -- what did the meetings do for the organization?COX: Well, you mean the -- our meetings?
IRONS: Your meetings, yeah. I'm going back.
00:09:00COX: Well, they were joyful. They felt very proud. They felt somebody, like
somebody. They could go into open meeting and come out without anybody getting on 'em, see.IRONS: That's great. What was your role?
COX: I just remember down here. I don't know whether I was vice president or
Walter [Pearson's?] or what.IRONS: Tell me about Walter Pearson? What do you know about him?
COX: He was an old like man, union man all his life, and through him we formed
the organization (inaudible).IRONS: He was a leader.
COX: Yeah, he was a leader.
IRONS: What made him a leader?
COX: His knowledge. He was smart. He knew the company and all, and he a smart
feller, and we got behind Walter along with some of the other, [Coy Calaway?], [Garret?], [Lofston?] and some of the older people that gone, run passed away now and gone, and we decided to try it ourself and we done it. And we would 00:10:00have making a success out of it until Cox and Dean entered the picture. When they entered the picture our people swung over to them, some of 'em did, and stayed with them. After the strike was over, after we got dealing with Cox and Dean and the strike was over, and we was told to get back to bed while you can. He very seldom ever heard a union in there. But us old people stayed together all the time. We never left one another. We knew who knows what and we kept our union going from the '34 until we got a chance to organize.IRONS: OK, let's talk about the strike that you just mentioned because
that's the central story that we're really trying to tell. Now do you remember when it got started? 00:11:00COX: I believe it was July 19 and -- I believe it was July the 11th, 19 and 34.
IRONS: That's right.
COX: That's the best of my remembrance, now. I know we worked the Wednesday
and come out of there, I believe it was on Wednesday, July the 11th.IRONS: Now do you remember how you heard that there was going to be a strike?
Do you remember...COX: Cox and Dean told 'em.
IRONS: In a big meeting or one at a time or --
COX: Yeah, yeah, he went up to the company as recognition, company told him no.
Then he -GEORGE STONEY: I'd like to stop just a moment.
COX: Well that took place under Cox and Dean.
IRONS: Right. That's --
COX: We did not pull 'em out.
GEORGE STONEY: Yeah, but what about the -- was that why the other strike started?
IRONS: We have a newspaper article that says that the reason that you went out
that July the 11th or July the 12th or whatever day it was, that Wednesday or Thursday, was because five people had been fired.COX: They was fired after Cox and Dean come out.
IRONS: Right, oh, absolutely. So what -- but what we need you do is simply
00:12:00explain why the strike happened at that point, what were the immediate circumstances that made it happen?COX: It was on account of the firing of some of the people they put out.
IRONS: Yeah, OK.
COX: On the old union. Of course, we all observed it. Every one of us, all in
all, we observed their right and we came out and stayed out with 'em. We didn't want to buck 'em, nothing like that. We just went ahead and tended our own business and stayed away from 'em as much as we could. And, of course, when it come time to pull picket duty, we was on duty, yeah, and stayed on it I believe for 11 weeks.IRONS: How strong was the strike here at Dwight?
COX: Nobody went in, nobody went out.
IRONS: Now that's amazing. How do you explain that?
COX: We had every gate covered. We had men with baseball bats, sticks -- I
never seen no gun. Now he mentioned guns but I never seen a gun down there, and 00:13:00we had our people. We stayed at that gate day and night, 24 hours a day. Group of us playing [rope?], pitching horseshoes, stuff like that, but we kept people in the picket line 24 hours a day until the strike was over.IRONS: Was there any violence?
COX: Might have been a scrimmage here and there but I wasn't -- I was mostly
there at the Oak Street gate, and we had the mill gate up there, and we had the office gate, then we had the old gate around on this side, bell tower gate, and then we had the lake bank gate. We had it completely surrounded. But we can surround the thing and kept 'em out.IRONS: Now, how did people feel while the strike was going on? Do you remember
people's emotions or even yours?COX: Well my emotion, I knowed it was fighting a dead horse in my opinion.
Though we tried to preach to some of these people what they going to get into. 00:14:00They wouldn't pay no attention, went ahead. Of course, nothing we could do about it. They just -- 4 to 500 hundred of us against over 2000 of the others, see, and we had to do the best we could do.IRONS: What was the spirit on the picket lines? Can you describe that?
COX: Oh, everybody was happy. Everybody's happy on the picket line even
though we had getting nothing -- no nourishment and nothing like that. They didn't offer to feed us nothing or nothing. We couldn't pay nobody bills. All had to be taken care of after we went back to work and got work out -- the rent was took out on us. I had to went right back to work. Our light bill was paid up. I was able to pay it, paid it. I was able to buy some groceries, bought it, and if I had two or three dollars I'd get me some flour, buy me a flour or something like that, and cook it and eat it. But it was rough during 00:15:00them days, rough.IRONS: And you tri- you were able to buy groceries down at the store?
COX: No, no, my grocery man cut me off.
IRONS: Tell me about that.
COX: We struck on Wednesday night and I believe it was on Thursday morning I was
just living right across the street from up here on [Allendale], I went down there and told the man I'd like to get a pack of Bull Durham cigarette backer and he go, "You on strike ain't ya'?" I said "Yep.", "Can't sell you nothing." I said, "You won't sell me a nickel pack of cigarette backer?", "Nope, you on strike." I said, "All right, all right." I said, "I owe you three or four dollars," I said, "I'll bring 'em back. I'll pay you what I owe you." So Saturday when I drove my payday, Friday when we went up there and got our payday, see they held back a week and we had a week and a half of pay coming, they paid us. I went down there and paid him. "Now what I can sell you," and I said, "Not a damn thing you can sell me. 00:16:00You sold me the last thing you're ever going to sell me." And from that day to this day, I never went in his store no more. I'm just that hardheaded.IRONS: That's a great story. So how did people eat? Where did they get their food?
COX: Just anyway they could get it, honey. Things was cheap down back them
days, you know, real cheap. As I said, you could buy a [fire?] for a quarter. You could buy a side of meat for a dollar. And them it -- my sisters and brothers and all like that, we all pitched in and we -- we'd eat. We didn't starve to death but we got by the best we could get by. Except the debts piled up on us.IRONS: Tell me about what happened when the strike ended?
COX: Well, when the strike ended, Cox and Dean told us, "Go back up there and
00:17:00get your job anyway you can get it," and them the very exact words that he quoted us on the top of that shithouse down there -- excuse me, I forgot about that -- toilet, down at where he told us the strike's over, "Go back and get your jobs the best way you can get 'em, we're through." Then we were notified that the personnel office would be open, and every single person that worked in that mill had to go through the unemployment office. You walked in there, the weave shop, card room, and the weave shops, and the cloth room and every one of the bosses is in there, and you went in -- Cox used to (inaudible), yeah, likely get 'em out.IRONS: Who was making those decisions?
COX: The overseer of the mills.
IRONS: How -- what -- why -- how would they decide who was going to get a job
and who was not going to?COX: They looked at you and they knowed ya. They knew who they wanted and who
00:18:00they didn't want. So you went in there and the first thing he said to me, "Get out, Cox, said (inaudible) leave." He was the spinning room overseer, you see. He'd pick who he wanted to pick. Told me to get out so I went on out.IRONS: Why do you think he told you to get out?
COX: Because he didn't like me, I was union, and he knew it. So I went on
out. Went back there three days later and, of course, they hired a bunch of 'em, you know, put 'em on back in there. Some of them they felt they could control and all. Some of 'em may have told 'em flatfooted you're blackballed, get out. You'll never work another day no cotton mill in the United States, and he'd come out to that pass. They would bar all over the United States, everywhere.IRONS: So then after a few days you went back again.
COX: Yeah, I went back again and I went back through the employment office, and
00:19:00then we knew that the company was hurting because they couldn't start the machines up, so I went back in. Bill [Lackly?] was still in there and asked [Strom] where's the spinning room boss. Bill Lackly said, "Get out, Cox." [Ed?] said, "Wait a minute, Bill." He went over and talked to Bill Lackly, Ed told 'em, he say, "Come in on the first shift in the morning." I was working the third shift. Come in on the first shift in the morning. That's how I went back to work.IRONS: That was it.
COX: They -- they either wanted you or they didn't want you.
IRONS: Tell me how people felt when Cox and Dean said that the strike was over,
it was time to go back into the mill.COX: They didn't like it, honey.
IRONS: Why not?
COX: Words couldn't express what them people -- what they went through for 11
weeks and then tell -- get up and tell them, "Get your job back the best way you can get it." How in the world is it anybody can explain that? Only way it turned out.IRONS: What --
GEORGE STONEY: Now it may be time to read the paper.
00:20:00IRONS: OK. This is the Gadsden Times, September 23rd, 1934, "Workers told by
leaders to resume jobs. Hundreds of thousands of workers who responded to the call of union leaders tonight were ordered by those leaders to man the looms on Monday. This decision to terminate the most gigantic walkout of modern times followed a thorough study and discussion of a settlement plan endorsed by President Roosevelt." So that was what happened that day was that the national leaders of the union decided that this strike was going to be over, and you can remember the feeling that people had --COX: Oh, yeah --
IRONS: -- when they heard about that.
COX: And what would you do at 11 weeks of suffering it out and then the man get
up and tell you, "Get your job back the best way you can get 'em back." 00:21:00GEORGE STONEY: But listen to what [Gorman?] said they'd won.
IRONS: He said, "William Green, President" -- OK. "Francis J. Gorman,
energetic leader of the strike forces smilingly told newspaperman, we have gained every substantial thing that we can from this strike. Our strike has torn apart the whole unjust structure of the NRA lifting a load from all of labor, as well as from ourselves. We have secured these definite things: an end to the stretch out, a method of determining hours on basis of fact, a method of determining wages on basis of fact, practical recognition of our union, reform in the whole administration of the NRA." That's what Gorman said that the strike achieved. 00:22:00COX: Well, you can believe him or believe who you're sitting by. They
didn't -- when they held that meeting on Sunday afternoon and told us to get back, I don't who they was dealing with on the other side but we was just frankly told to report back up there, get your job back the best way you can get 'em back.IRONS: So you didn't -- you don't think that the strike achieved any of
these --COX: No, sir, it didn't achieve none of it. We went back in there worked
until we come out. That is a fancy boy that lie. They didn't accomplish nothing for us.IRONS: OK, now -- so after the workers went into the unemployment line and were
told that they couldn't get their jobs, how did they feel --GEORGE STONEY: Let's -- let's --
JAMIE STONEY: We've got another five minutes left.
GEORGE STONEY: OK, OK, go ahead, sorry.
00:23:00IRONS: No, that's OK.
JAMIE STONEY: Our fault.
GEORGE STONEY: Go right ahead, yes.
JAMIE STONEY: Ignore us, we're not here.
IRONS: Describe the feelings that people had when they found out they couldn't
get their jobs back?COX: Well, I didn't get to talk to all of 'em but as I said, some of 'em
were blackballed. They was told, "You'd never work a mill no more." And then when they did get the job back, they had to take what they wanted 'em to take. You didn't have no choice. You went in there and done what they said to do, not want you want to do or where your job was at. You done what the company said to do. And it was a lots of disappointment over that.IRONS: What happened to the union?
COX: After the strike was over, it left, except us old people that stayed in the mill.
IRONS: So y'all stuck around.
COX: We stick around 'til we got the union through TWA.
IRONS: So you think it's important that there was this group of people.
COX: Yes, sir, it was a good group of people still left in that mill after the
'34 incident. 00:24:00IRONS: And what finally happened? Did the union ever come to Gadsden?
COX: We was -- got organized and we had to find out by mouth, would you be
interested in a union, we get one to come in, yeah, yeah, yeah. We passed the word around and then the union sent Herb Williams in and he's a [politic?] organizing, and when we went through our election we had 14 people that vote against it, over 3000 voted for it. That's how strong a union our union was.GEORGE STONEY: Now when was that?
COX: Nineteen and 42-43.
GEORGE STONEY: I want you to go back and tell all that and just tell when it
happened. We waited all those years but we talked, OK? Do it again.IRONS: It's a great story, just put the date in there.
GEORGE STONEY: John, John, go ahead.
COX: Let's see, 19 and -
GEORGE STONEY: No, no, you're close.
COX: I don't -- blank.
00:25:00GEORGE STONEY: OK. You want to start off by saying we had to wait a long time,
seven years.COX: You mean -- yeah, well, after -- after we was come off of striking in
'34, our old union people did not disband. We tell -- we could hold together and we kept 'em together. We didn't come open but we held meetings and stuff like that at places. First one place and then another. And we knowed some day or another we would have a chance at it, and we did get our chance to organize but it was through the determination of a group of old people, solid union people, they got this union into Dwight Manufacturing Company.IRONS: When did that happen?
COX: It happened during WWII, when we had our election.
IRONS: Was it a long time after the '34 strike?
COX: Yeah, it was '34 to '40-some-odd.
00:26:00IRONS: So you were holding the people together for that long.
COX: We were still talking union right up around that mill but we wouldn't
dare get on the outside.IRONS: Tell me, you got the union in finally during WWII and people remembered
the strike in '34.COX: Oh, yes, yes, they remembered it.
IRONS: Do you think that that strike and the union organizing that went along
with it, do you think that made it easier or made it harder to get the union in when it finally came?COX: It made it easier on us because they people went through with it. When we
knew that they wouldn't go through again, we didn't have the right people so we help hold 'em together, talk to 'em. We talked about everything and then they decided they wanted the union to come in and so Herb William come in from [Amo Reve's?] organization along with George [Bodanzie] and they took over, 00:27:00and when we held our election up here, Bodanzie and Amo Reve were all down here when the ballots counted. The company got about 100-some-odd votes; we got the rest of 'em.IRONS: Which was how many?
COX: It's 3,300 people working up her at that mill at that time, 3,300.
IRONS: That's a great story.
GEORGE STONEY: We didn't talk about the company union.
IRONS: After the '34 strike ended, what happened then? Did the company do anything?
COX: After the '34 strike? Well, they just treated us like they wanted to
treat us and everything. We didn't get no fair treatment until Roosevelt put the 12-hour -- 8-hour law into effect. Then we commenced getting relief. 00:28:00IRONS: Was there something called the Dwight Employees Association?
COX: Dwight Employees Association was a company organization formed by the
company, run by the company.IRONS: When was that formed?
COX: It was formed after the strike in '34.
IRONS: Well, why did they form it after that strike?
COX: The company wanted to get the people over. They would have find out how
many people were generally on their side. They had their meetings and everything. I don't know where they ever filed bylaws or anything first. You might check at the courthouse and see. But they supposed to be the Dwight Employees Association, company union, that's what it was, company union.IRONS: Did it get anywhere?
COX: No, they held their meetings. They say what they going to do. Didn't
know what they wanna do. I never attended but four or five all I ever attended. That was the wrong side of my people up there. Go in, look at the boys in the face and then have to think either union member, Dwight employee, I couldn't 00:29:00do it.IRONS: How did you get along with your boss?
COX: Well, they found out how hardheaded I was and everything. Found out to
leave me alone, I got along pretty fair.